textproduct: Amarillo

KEY MESSAGES

Issued at 1215 PM CDT Fri Mar 13 2026

- Increasing potential for strong winds behind the cold front passage Sunday as probabilities of widespread wind gusts over 50 mph is currently high. Cold wind chills return on Sunday and Sunday night. The strong winds can cause elevated to critical fire weather conditions for Sunday.

- Warm and drier conditions are expected to keep elevated conditions today and Saturday.

- Record highs can occur on Saturday and again for the mid portions of next work week.

SHORT TERM

(This evening through Saturday night) Issued at 1215 PM CDT Fri Mar 13 2026

The southern plains still remains inbetween the broad low pressure to the northeast and the higher pressure to the southwest. This is keeping the panhandles broadly in a northwest to westerly flow aloft. Such a setup will keep the panhandles both warm and dry for both today and Saturday. The winds will be generally weak but a some patchy areas of breezy winds can occur during the afternoon hours. The dry conditions is causing elevated fire weather concerns, but the lack of any notable winds excludes any concern for critical fire weather conditions. Today and Saturday will both see well above normal temperatures with Saturday being the warmer of the two days. In fact Saturday can get hot enough for the high to go near or even breach records high levels. Otherwise both today and Saturday will see fair weather and can easily be described as pleasant sunny days.

LONG TERM

(Sunday through next Thursday) Issued at 1215 PM CDT Fri Mar 13 2026

Sunday a potent weather system has a very high chance of moving through the broad scale flow and impact the southern plains. This weather system in turn has a high chance of quickly pushing a stout cold front across the panhandles during the morning hours of Sunday. Following this front strong north winds have a high chance of blowing across the panhandles all the way through the evening. The most likely wind speeds with being in the 30s to 40s mph range and the gusts most likely in the 50s to 60s mph range. That would makes these winds damaging so we have issued a High Wind Watch for Sunday. We can expect that these winds will make travel hard, doubly so for high profile vehicles, especially on the east/west routes such as I-40. The winds will have a high chance of driving in much colder air across the panhandles. It is such that the temperatures on Sunday may be warmest during the morning hours with it stalling for afternoon and then falling sharply towards the evening. This system has a low chance of moving moisture as far south as the panhandles. This means that there is a low chance for some sprinkles to light precipitation that wont result in much if any accumulation even if it does occur. The passage of this system and it strong winds will pose a risk of creating elevated to critical fire weather conditions. In the northern panhandles the cold air and the limited moisture are most likely to cap the fire weather concerns to elevated. For the southern panhandles the windy conditions ahead of the front and overall drier air will most likely lead to critical fire weather conditions. This can easily change based on how fast the colder air moves in and how far south moisture pushes. Still such fire weather concerns are high enough that a Fire Weather Watch has been issued for the southern portions of the Texas panhandle. Now a big note is that any already established fires are burning on Sunday the post frontal winds will absolutely allow them to grow and spread fast. Another threat from this system will be from lofted dust and ash from the burn scars. These will be capable of causing lowered visibilities and air quality for the panhandles. This reductions of visibilities can be significant very close to the recent burn scars from this year (1061 Tascosa road comes to mind). Just as fast as this system arrived it will depart the southern plains being out of here most likely by Monday afternoon.

The cold air has a high chance of stay across the panhandles for much of Monday taking longer to move out of the area. Still it will most likely filter out of the region during the overnight hours of Monday into Tuesday.

For the rest of next work week there is a high chance of high pressure building across the southwestern portions of the U.S. including both the southern plains and the panhandles. Under such a weather set up dry and hot conditions will have a high chance of occurring. In fact the temperatures have a high chance of reaching into the 90s for both Thursday and Friday. Such heat will be a threat to the record high temperatures for much of the later portions of next week.

AVIATION

(18Z TAFS) Issued at 1215 PM CDT Fri Mar 13 2026

VFR conditions at all airfields and across the panhandles for the next 24 hours. The winds are expected to be fairly weak through today and tonight. However the wind direction will change through the day in a clockwise manner. This will see the current northeast to east winds change over to southerly by tonight and then broadly westerly by Saturday morning. During the overnight hours stronger winds are likely to form just off the surface with speed LLWS for KGUY. KAMA and KDHT will also see similar conditions but just not strong enough for LLWS and thus not reflected in the TAFs.

AMA WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

TX...Fire Weather Watch from Sunday morning through Sunday evening for TXZ001>020-317.

High Wind Watch from Sunday morning through Sunday evening for TXZ001>020-317.

OK...Fire Weather Watch from Sunday morning through Sunday evening for OKZ001>003.

High Wind Watch from Sunday morning through Sunday evening for OKZ001>003.